Rightmove Search Tools explained.
Rightmove has many tools to enhance your property search experience. With over a million properties listed for sale or rent in the UK, most estate agents and property professionals use Rightmove. For users looking to buy a house, to find homes for sale.
Rightmove Search lists properties for sale or rents throughout the UK, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The search facility includes all major cities (London, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, etc.)
Rightmove has an array of fantastic tools to enhance users property searching experience.
Rightmove search tools
We consider each of Rightmove’s tools to help find the perfect home with example screenshots.
- Keyword Sort
- Where can I live?
- ‘Draw a search’,
- ‘Instant Property Alerts’,
- School Checker,
- Sold Prices,
- Calculators,
- Valuation Tool,
- Property Maps,
- Search on The Go
- Save properties,
- Saving personalised search areas.
1. Rightmove’ Keyword Sort.’
The ‘Keyword Sort’ tool lets you personalise the search terms used to find the features you want in a property, filtering the property search results – a huge time-saving feature. Easily filter your search results, for example, properties with must-have features such as ‘utility rooms’ or ‘conservatories’. Maybe you’re a property investor and want to find ‘unmodernised properties’, do this easily using the Rightmove keyword sort tool.
2. Rightmove’s ‘Where Can I Live.’
Located on the Homepage, Rightmove’s tool ‘Where can I Live’s does what it says. First, input your preferred location by clicking on the link ‘Discover your perfect location’.
Next, enter a budget and property criteria and the places you want to be near. Finally, click on the get started button.
Then either register to use Rightmove as a new user or sign in with your account details.
Once signed in, there is the option to select specific criteria; in the first two selection boxes, choose ‘I need to be near, work, or school, or family/ friends, or other.
Next, enter in the following selection box an address or postcode.
The second box further refines the ‘where can I live’ selection by the time taken to get there, from 15 minutes to 2 hours in 15-minute increments, and the preferred mode of transport (bicycle, walking, car or public transport, etc.). Then, finally, the tool does the rest, a bit like Sat Nav or using Google maps!
Add a second and third location at this point, and the selection process repeats.
Next, tell the tool if you want to buy or rent, choose between, house, flat or ‘any’, together with the number of bedrooms and preferred budget.
Next, hit ‘Find Areas’, and if there are matching properties with your selection, they’ll display on a map like the one below:
Selecting the green box ‘Show me the first area’ then displays the results in order of affordability, according to your initial budget entered earlier.
In this example, the information displayed shows the travel time to ‘Winfield Rd as 27 minutes cycling. The selection of two-bed properties lists the average house price at £70,000 and for flats, £75,000, and finally, the number of properties matching the range as 113 in this area.
Selecting the tab ‘See all properties’ then opens a new browser window with the properties displayed, and again, sort these in several ways.
Scroll the results to see more properties.
3. Rightmove ‘Draw a Search.’
Rightmove Draw-a-Search allows you to find properties in your preferred area/ location by drawing a search outline, saving it, and repeating the exact search whenever you want.
Why is this useful? Because traditional search is usually limited to postcode, town or county, whereas you may want to include several postcodes, parts from different cities, or an area combining elements of two or more towns. Plus, using ‘Draw a Search’ allows omitting specific locations. Just imagine drawing freehand on a paper map!
How to use the ‘Draw a Search’ tool
Using your mouse cursor, hover over the desired geographical location, and a text box will appear ‘click and release to place your first point’. Once done, a straight line appears, which can be dragged and released to the next desired outline point, the text box will be visible and the phrase ‘click on the map to draw an edge’ and ‘continue placing points’ or ‘double click to finish shape’ will appear. Once the shape completes, a pop-up box appears with the option of saving the ‘selection query’ you just created, and you can view the properties within that selection.
Select ‘view properties’ in the map above, and the results display as illustrated in the image below, with the option to refine the selection further using the filtering described earlier.
4. Instant Property Alerts
Instant property alerts from Rightmove is a great tool. To receive the notifications for properties meeting your criteria, you need to log in to Rightmove.co.uk.
Step 1, set up an instant property alert start by searching Rightmove for properties. Use the search box.
Step 2, refine the search on the area and radius, with bedroom numbers, price range, and property type.
Step 3, locate the ‘Create Alert’ at the top of the page and decide how often you want to receive the notifications from Rightmove and how often you wish to be updated.
Finally, view alerts and saved searches in ‘My Rightmove’ on the menu at the top of the page on the right-hand side. From here, delete alerts and searches when they are no longer required. Note from this section other tabs ‘Saved Properties’, ‘Drawn Areas’, Investor News’ and ‘My Details, are available to personalise your experience or edit details, etc.
5. School Checker
Use the ‘School Checker’ to locate a property near your desired school. Rightmove’s School Checker tool identifies the areas that where school pupils live. In addition, data for schools, inspection reports are available too.
6. Sold Prices
Rightmove’s sold house prices tool assists in researching house prices when buying or selling property. Further, users can check the selling price of neighbouring sold properties. However, it’s worth mentioning many other property portals provide similar information on sold house prices – a key research indicator when selling or buying a house.
7. Rightmove Calculators
Rightmove provides calculators for Help to Buy, property and mortgage affordability when buying a house, which is also helpful for buy-to-let. Using these calculators can save you time and money and decide what properties you can afford to buy.
8. Rightmove Valuation Tool
If you’re considering selling your home, then the Rightmove valuation tool can assist in estimating the value of your home. Rightmove gives you the option when entering the valuation data of choosing some local agents to do a more formal estimate and offering to market your house for sale. Flying Homes has a similar property valuation tool here.
9. Rightmove Property maps
Rightmove property maps have some ‘Quick Links’ to quickly take you to larger map areas of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London, and London tube stations. These examples are probably the most popular search areas, hence the ‘Quick Links’.
Selecting any of the links leads to an area where you can drill down to more specific areas.
Rightmove property map. Selecting ‘Yorkshire & the Humber in the above example opens another sub-menu to drill down further to the precise area or town required.
Clicking on ‘South Yorkshire property’ opens another map as detailed below, with different options presented. The options are:
- Property for sale in South Yorkshire
- Property for rent in South Yorkshire
- Estate agents in South Yorkshire
- House prices in South Yorkshire
Hovering over any of the areas opens yet another sub-menu. For example, selecting Bawtry allows selection of property for sale or rent and Estate Agents in Bawtry:
Selecting ‘Property to rent’ on this map opens a further property results page for ‘Bawtry’.
The results displayed can be further refined. The sort selection can be,
- by price,
- newest listed, and,
- expressed as a grid or on a map.
The property results filter by minimum and maximums based on,
- price,
- the number of bedrooms,
- and the property type.
More filters refine the property results by property type, i.e., detached, semi-detached, flats, bungalows, land, etc.
10. Search on the go
The Rightmove’ Search on the go’ is just that. Use your mobile phone and download the Rightmove app for your model, android (google), iPhone (Apple), Windows and more!
11. Saving Search Terms
Saving a search term on Rightmove is simple and is very similar to the process to follow for ‘Instant Alerts’
To save a search, do the following:
- Sign in
- Perform a search, filter the results
- Click on Save your search on the search results page.
- Receive matching properties via your email account, selecting the frequency
Change or run the saved searches in ‘my Rightmove’.
12. Saving Properties to My Personalised Account
How can you save a property to a shortlist to view later?
Saving individual properties is straightforward. When you’ve located a property you wish to keep, then click on the Save property’ link, which is a small white heart, which, when clicked, turns red and the property saved. Next, ensure you’re signed in and review any saved properties in the ‘My Rightmove’ section.
Enjoyed our look at Right Move’s tools? Try the Plus version for professionals.
